Frankfurt, Dusseldorf Germany’s large companies complain about the traffic chaos at airports and the limited availability of rental cars. This is the result of a Handelsblatt survey of the 40 Dax companies. Beiersdorf writes, for example: “There are significant problems with all modes of transport.” The Nivea manufacturer complains about difficulties with air travel and rental car providers.
The pharmaceutical and chemical group Bayer also reports complications in aviation: “Air travel is currently problematic.” A spokesman criticized above all the “short-term changes” to the flight plan. Siemens and the pharmaceutical supplier Sartorius also see the greatest difficulties in air traffic.
The chaos at European airports with long waiting times before security checks, delayed or canceled flights hinders the business trips of managers and employees. Continental sums it up: “Appointments have to be postponed or canceled altogether.” Deutsche Bank reports that its employees “have to allow for more travel time.” The pharmaceutical company Merck also advises its employees.
Business trips in the summer of 2022 are less predictable and no longer as reliable as before. Those who schedule their appointments tightly often find that this no longer works. This makes business trips less efficient for companies. Christoph Carnier, President of the Business Travel Association VDR, recently told the Handelsblatt: “The problems are only really beginning now.”
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Even if the pre-crisis level has not yet been reached, employees are again traveling more on business than in 2021. In addition, many people are very keen to fly abroad again. “This leads to ever greater bottlenecks,” said Carnier. “This will lead to growing irritation.”
Rental car bottleneck
But it’s not just the problems in flight operations that worry companies. Another hurdle is that fewer rental cars are available. Allianz reports: “We see additional organizational work for rental cars, some of which are currently only available to a very limited extent.” not granted”.
According to the Federal Statistical Office, the cost of rental cars in Germany in May was 48.7 percent higher than in May 2021. One reason for this is the lack of vehicles. When the corona pandemic started in early 2020 and tough lockdowns were imposed, many rental companies parted with large parts of their fleet. Because renting was out of the question for her.
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Now that demand is increasing again, fleet operators cannot expand their fleets quickly enough. Because new cars are in short supply, there are no semiconductors and other important components. The car manufacturers have reduced their production numbers significantly in some cases.
Despite the travel chaos, most corporations are not reducing their travel activities. There is only one exception in the Dax: Symrise. “Our employees avoid traveling due to the sometimes chaotic conditions,” says the fragrance and aroma manufacturer. Due to the long processing times at the airports, many employees missed connecting flights. Now they are holding more digital meetings again.
The fact that the corporations are hardly reducing their business trips despite the tense situation is because employees are traveling less for business anyway than before Corona. In the so-called barometer survey, which the business travel association VDR carries out regularly, in April 2022 61 percent of the companies stated that they wanted to reduce the number of their trips by up to 30 percent. Just under nine percent of the companies surveyed want to return to the pre-crisis level.
Why travel budgets are hardly increasing
One reason: the company managers have gotten used to the low travel budgets. The business travel analysis by the VDR shows how much these have shrunk due to the pandemic. In 2020 – the first year of the pandemic – the costs for companies for business trips fell by more than 80 percent to around ten billion euros. In 2020, companies saved 45 billion euros in travel expenses.
In 2021, the budgets are likely to have increased only slightly. And Carnier from the VDR sees only a slight increase for the near future: “Flights, hotels, rental cars, everything is becoming more expensive. Many companies will not increase their budgets at the same rate. That’s a challenge.” Because of the new crises – the Ukraine war, rising material and energy costs and the threat of recession – the companies are keeping every penny together.
In addition, during the pandemic, business has learned that many business trips can be replaced by virtual meetings. Many corporations will no longer reach the business travel level of before 2019 and do not want to.
For example, the energy supplier Eon counted 48 percent fewer business trips in the first half of the year than in the same period in 2019. Bayer wants to permanently reduce trips by around half. Symrise is also counting on such savings in the travel budget. Continental is currently conducting 20 percent fewer business trips than before the pandemic. With numbers like this, it doesn’t matter that much if individual employees rely more on virtual meetings again in these days of chaos.
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Employees in more and more corporations are being encouraged to do this anyway. At Allianz, employees should prefer virtual meetings “wherever possible” to business trips. At Adidas, too, employees are “required to check whether a business trip is necessary, regardless of current events”. And the chemicals group Covestro notes “because of fundamentally positive experiences with virtual meetings” that “employees voluntarily refrain from business trips”.
However, business trips will not disappear completely from the world of work. According to MTU, the “rebuilding of personal relationships” is “significantly more difficult” in a virtual environment. Existing relationships with customers and partners can only be “virtually maintained for a limited time”.
Many companies are surprisingly reluctant to judge the railways. It is currently struggling with capacity bottlenecks in the rail network. Some companies also report problems here.
But overall, the complaints about delays are limited. The real estate group Vonovia, which has its core business in Germany and therefore mainly travels by rail, is not even finding “any major complications” with the train.
More: Strikes and staff shortages: Where chaos threatens air travelers in Europe.